Goodnight My Friend
by otavah
Summary: The early days of Richard's rule were challenging because the young boy hadn't actually planed on being king. There were a lot of habits that Richard would have to learn to break before he could become an acceptable ruler. His new guard Gareth was assigned to him to help him out with that.
**A/N This fanfic was written in one sitting with no beta. I am only posting it here so I can become a beta myself.**

Exasperated sobbing sounds echoed throughout the castle's hallways and seeped into its many chambers. The sounds lasted almost the whole night, never quite dying out completely. Surprisingly, nobody in the castle was surprised or bothered by these pathetic sounds; nobody cared one bit.

The noises were common occurrences that happened almost every night. Everyone was used to the sounds and knew how to block it out completely. It wasn't until around 4 o'clock in the morning when young Dickie woke up in a sweat from a very rough night's sleep. He had once again dreamed of Kingsley tormenting him in his various usual ways. In the dream, Kingsley had given him an atomic wedgie, noogies and then proceeded to pants him in front of everyone in the kingdom. It was awful. His face was red and his eyes were stinging and watering. Everyone was laughing at him. When he woke up his eyes were still red and he started to cry for real that time.

Dickie was alone in his chamber when he woke up. The crackle of his fire place was the only thing that he could hear. It was still dark outside and even the servants weren't up at that time. He was awake, however. Awake and completely alone. It took him awhile to completely adjust to the darkness of his room. The moonlight allowed him to peer around and hazily check his surroundings. After the fuzziness of his dream wore off, a frightening fact came sailing in his mind, which now scared the crap out of him. He realized something for the first time, it finally registered: he was king now and his brother Kingsley had gone forever. A smile spread across his face, despite the tears which still crept from the corners of his eyes. He had won, he was King and his brother was gone. All of his wishing and secret visits to the psychics and people with voodoo dolls had finally paid off. He should be happy about this,he thought, as he clutched his blue blanket to his chest. But he wasn't, he was completely scared out of his mind! Being a King would be tough, especially when nobody liked him. Almost everyone had expected Kingsley to be King instead of him, the younger fat little brother with anxiety. Dickie's mind was racing, thinking about his newly found position. A moment later, while he was still crying, he heard a creak of a door and footsteps slowly walking in his direction. The shoes made clicking sounds every time they hit the marble floor. Click. Click. Click.

The new king's mind raced, he had lived his whole life in the castle and nobody ever walked in the hallways at this time of night. Even if a servant was up, they were not permitted in the area that housed the royal bedrooms, especially at night. This situation was not alright at all. 'I'm going to die,' he thought. 'Somebody is upset that I'm the King and not Kingsley and now they want to kill me!' The sound got closer and closer. He really thought someone was going to kill him and he could feel the beginnings of an anxiety attack coming along.

"Oh no!" Dickie whispered to himself as he hid under the covers, trying to steal his chest and the sounds of his laboured breathing. He hadn't even been king for 12 hours and someone was going to assassinate him! He wiped his tears and snotty nose as the steps sounded as if they were right outside his door. He heard the door opening and he started to cry more loudly, despite his best efforts. "I'm definitely going to be found out and killed!" he thought again as he began to cry and sniffle profusely making his face a melange of salty tears and bogeys.

The footsteps got closer to his bed and stopped. Nothing happened. He waited some more and still, nothing happened. Perhaps it was just a thief, he thought happily, trying to make the best out of his situation. There still was no movement coming from the direction of the intruder. The only movement in the whole room was Dickie, who was shaking violently, curled up in a ball underneath his covers. After about 5 minutes the anticipation had got to him, the "assassin thief" still hadn't moved. It was right there that the cowering figure of a king decided to do the bravest thing in his whole protected and pathetic life. He cleared his throat and told the assassin there to "Take all of the money and jewelry and leave!" He tossed his royal ring from under the covers quickly as a peace offering and it rolled on the floor until it hit the wall and stopped. The footsteps started again and relief washed over the young king.

The presumed "assassin thief," picked up the ring from the floor and began to walk to the king who was still in a fetal position under the covers. He lifted up the covers and saw the ex-Prince cowering in fear of him.

"I think you'll be needing this," said the person who picked up the ring and slipped it back on the King's stout little finger. It was dark outside, but the gruff voice that spoke to him sounded young. The King peered into his eyes, still shaking, now clutching his comfort blanket. It looked as if he was ready to wet the bed out of fear.

"I'm Gareth," the presumed assassin thief finally said. "Do you remember? They put me in charge of you today. I heard crying and I thought to come and check on you."

The King blinked many times before saying, "Thank you," meekly. He wiped his tears from his eyes and took a closer look at his new guard. He looked like a young boy, around his age, 10, maybe even younger. Even though their ages were most likely close together, the two boys couldn't look or be any different. The new boy looked tough, manly and probably would be a better king than Dickie any day due to his strong looking physique and fearless attitude. Dickie, on the other hand looked dumpy, nervous and feeble; not exactly the qualities one wanted in their king.

The young boy called Gareth was staring into Dickie's eyes and that made him feel uncomfortable; his stomach churned and he felt sick. The fact that someone was paying so much attention to him made him feel even more weird and nervous. He didn't hate it, it was just something new and different, for someone to care about him and pay attention to him alone.

The stupid boy was making him sick, he thought, but in reality it probably was all the food he had wolfed down as an after dinner snack earlier that evening.

"Do you need anything, young Sir?" Gareth inquired sensing the King's uncomfortableness. "Are you ok now?"

Dickie nodded vertically. There was more silence as they boys kept eye contact.

"You can leave now, I guess." Dickie finally said; and the boy left. Dickie sighed in relief. Being the center of someone's attention was horrifying, it made him feel poorly.

The next morning Dickie woke up to Gareth standing right next to his bed side. He screamed a high pitched shriek..

"Good morning, your Highness," the young boy said stoically. "Today is your first day as king and you are supposed to make a public speech today for your loyal subjects. I was sent here to make sure you won't get murdered on the way to the ceremony." he said with the best of a smile that he could manage

Dickie got out of bed and began to make his way to the washroom to start his morning ablutions. When he was done, his handmaid came to dress him and Gareth gave her a stink eye.

"I wish she wouldn't be here," he said. "She looks untrustworthy."

"I need her. I don't know how to dress myself," Dickie replied with shame.

The two boys went to the dining hall where Dickie ate his breakfast. Gareth insisted that he taste the food, in addition to the usual 'Royal Poison Tester.' Thankfully for Dickie and the tester there was no poison today. The tester went to the board which read "910 workdays without an accident" and replaced the '910' with '901' while smiling. After breakfast Gareth led the King through the castle onto the balcony where a crowd below waited to hear from their new king. It would be a quick ceremony, yet, very important.

"Good luck, sire," Gareth said as he pushed the boy onto the balcony.

Dickie froze in fear. It looked like the whole kingdom had turned out to hear his speech. His face rouged in embarrassment as the whole throng of people outside silenced to listen to what he had to say. Someone coughed in awkwardness. Moments later a hushed whispering occurred."Is THAT our new king." some said "He looks quite small," said another voice. "Is he really carrying a blue blanket around like a baby!" added another. Dickie looked down at his blanket which he called Reginald, the Second, it had been with him since he was 2 years old.(The first Reginald that he had from birth to age two was cruelly disposed of by a nanny who was later "disposed of" herself.) His blanket was comfort, he never went anywhere without it. He hadn't even consciously realized that he carried the blanket out with him that day. People began to laugh at it, pointing and calling him a baby. He just stood there, next to Gareth, shell shocked. Tears were forming in Dickie's eyes and he began to feel dizzy. Suddenly, Gareth yanked the blanket from his hand and used it as a tissue and threw it on the crowd seemed to subside. Dickie fainted from the pressure and the violation on Reginald, the Second.

The young King woke up in his bed again, for the second time that morning and found Gareth standing next to his bed, this time with a solemn look on his face. The Queen had just left Dickie's room shaking her head. Dickie wanted to know why, but there was a more pressing matter at hand.

"Where is Reginald!" Dickie screamed in earnest, defending his friend.

Gareth looked at him confused before asking cautiously, "The blanket sir?"

"Yes!"

Gareth sheepishly pulled the old blanket from behind his back and handed it to his King. It seemed to have been washed. Upon receiving it Dickie noticed it still was a bit wet.

"I can have your head for this!" Dickie said, as if he weren't used to making many threats or people taking them seriously for that matter.

"I'm so sorry sir. I just saw them laughing at your blanket and I couldn't stand it. Please forgive me."

Dickie's heart jumped. No one had ever cared for him like this before. "T-thank you Gareth, you are forgiven." It was the quickest apology ever. He clutched the blanket to his chest comforting himself from embarrassment. He was still nervous and felt sick, but he could tell that the boy next to him really cared about him. His feelings poured out in a nervous stream of consciousness."Can I tell you something, Gareth? I haven't the slightest clue on the 'do's' and 'don'ts' of being king. I don't know why I do things sometimes. I needed Reginald II to help me get through the ceremony today. I now know this was a bad idea now." Pausing mid-sob be said " I'm such a baby," after realizing how he was such a failure.

Dickie cowered in the softness of his blanket until Gareth spoke up in a more hushed tone. "Sir, I don't know what to say about the king thing, but I can help you break some childish habits. Your mother told me that if you don't shape up for your public appearances you will have to give up the throne. I begged her for a week to reform you. She gave me two." he said thoughtfully. "I know I can do teach you, even if it's completely fake you need to at least lose the crying habit in front of crowds.. I was voted most manliest baby 5 years in a row. If I can't help you no one can."

Dickie's eyes brightened. "You can really help me!"

"Yep. Two weeks, we have until then."

Dickie hopped out of bed readily. Gareth looked down at the blanket in Dickie's hands and sighed. Reluctantly Dickie dropped it and Gareth left. When he wasn't looking, Dickie slipped it under his shirt.

The two studied hard and Dickie was starting to drop the physical habits of needy 3 year olds by the end of the first the week. Now the young king could hold back his tears 31% of the time, which was a very very good achievement. The blanket problem was fixed by sewing an actual handkerchief out of it, Dickie could still have his blanket with him and people would just think it was a decorational handkerchief. He vowed never to remove it from his pocket for actual use. The fact that he could now hold it without people questioning made him grin. The crying and blanket problems were solved within a week. The nightmare problem persisted however, and Dickie would whimper in his sleep every-so-often. Gareth came into his room and scolded him all those nights. On the fifth night Dickie asked Gareth to sing him a song to help him go to sleep.

"I can't sing," said Gareth

"Pleaseeeeee," prodded Dickie.

"I don't know any songs."

"None!"

"Nope. Singing is for the weak. I never bothered to learn any songs"

"No it's not," Dickied sighed. "Lots of strong people sing. Haven't you ever heard an old drunk hero guy sing in a tavern. Those are the best kinds of songs."

"Those songs are alright," said Gareth, after thinking about the statement for awhile. He had to admit to himself that he did enjoy songs of battle and triumph. "Those songs are sung from a man's soul, It's completely different. Besides, they aren't learned or ever repeated in the same way. Learning a song and singing a song from a man's soul is different."

"But the jester and his son sing and learn songs. What about the singing monks! They do too! Lots of men sing and lots of people listen. Like at churches and parties and stuff," Dickie added.

"No," Gareth said, adding that he did not accept that.

"Fine!" Dickie said as he covered his head with his blankets and turned his body away from Gareth. The adolescent guard finally left him and 30 minutes later the nightmares and crying started again.

Three days before the ceremony Gareth lay in his bed, surrounded in his room reeking of manliness. He tossed and turned at the sound of Dickie's audible nighttime sob sessions. He turned his head to the side and sandwiched his pillows between his ears, focusing on his bed curtains whilst trying to ignore Dickie. Every he came in to Dickie's room he had asked for a song, claiming it would make him feel better. Gareth always left as soon as he asked.

Dickie yelped in his sleep, Gareth reasoned that one night of non-stop sleep would do his king good. Him coming in his room nightly shouldn't be a habit ; and waking the King up in the middle of the night on a daily basis was probably bad for him, even if it's to save him from a nightmare.

Gareth started earnestly at his curtains surrounding his bed, counting the loose strings to distract himself. Every bone in his body was telling him to get up. After looking at the bed curtains for an hour and three quarters, Gareth noticed that his bed curtains were looking too flimsy, and thought maybe tomorrow he would replace them with something tough and fireproof, like chainmail. Sleep never came.

+++++++.

Gareth and Dickie were able to mask the baby-ish tendencies that the King had acquired over the years almost completely. Dickie still cried a lot, but not when people were looking. Now 80% of the time people couldn't tell if he was crying or not. Gareth let it slip out that the King had a royal disease called "allergies" that caused the king's eyes to be watery all the time. The people seemed to buy that. Dickie, also now knew how to cry without making a sound. He got less nervous around crowds and cried less in general.. Gareth was not satisfied with his work at all, however. The Queen had only asked him to make sure that her son cried less and looked presentable to the public during official business. That was achieved in a week, but the king was still a weakling, he knew that. It was so embedded into him, that Gareth knew he could never break the boy of his habits completely. Dickie would probably just change on his own once he was old enough to try to charm a girl, Gareth thought, because no girl would take him the way he was unless she was forced.

He decided to leave the complete manliness transformation lesson until that day that Dickie asked.

At breakfast the next morning the two ate in silence. Gareth noticed that Richard, upon dropping the crying and blanket habits, acquired a new habit: being a picky eater. Gareth sighed, knowing that he would have to deal with Dickie and his stupid habits for the rest of his life. He ultimately decided that despite this new weakness, he wouldn't say anything about this new habit during his weekly reports to the Queen, because frankly Dickie could stand to lose a couple of pounds. Hopefully a couple of years of the new habit would thin the boy out.

The public inauguration ceremony would take place tomorrow, but there was still one issue that Gareth had to deal with before he would let his king be inaugurated.

"Your name," Gareth said after he finished his meal.

"What?" said Dickie with a mouth full of porridge

"Don't kings change their name when they become king? It's part of the inauguration ceremony you know, or something. When you become King, you are basically starting out as a new make a statement to the people," he said Dickie looked at him quizzically. "You don't have to change it if you don't want to, or it doesn't have to be for that reason. It could be like if you have weird or normal boring name. Sometimes Kings just want their rule to have a certain feel to it, or they do it to honour a previous great dead king."

Dickie had to cut of the horrible rambling. Gareth hardly spoke so much so it must be as much of a pressing matter to him as it was to Dickie. "Yeah, my father's real name was Gaylord, but he changed it, "Dickie said putting his spoon down. "I never knew that until he died. I saw it on his tombstone. I was quite shocked actually."

"Well what are you going to do then?" asked Gareth.

"Don't laugh," Dickie said immediately because he had already given this idea some prior thought. "Richard. I want to be called, Richard."

Gareth let out a slight grin. "Why did you choose Richard?"

Dickie blushed. "Because it has the word "Rich" in it. And I always thought the the name Richard meant you were rich and that's what kings are supposed to be. I think Dickie is actually a variation of Richard. Unfortunately my real name is in fact, Dickie."

Gareth wanted to laugh at how silly Dickie's reason was but he didn't. "Ok, King Richard. I'll call you that from now on."

"Thanks," said King Richard with a childlike grin.

The rest of the day the two boys polished up and practiced the speech which was to be given at the event tomorrow. It was the most stressful day of both the boy's lives. Richard had many dizzy spells and was sweating buckets. Even Gareth was a bit nervous, if his king failed tomorrow, he would be out of a job. The two worked hard all day and Gareth was honestly proud of Richard's efforts, he would be a fine king possibly one day, he thought. The boys walked back to the royal chambers Gareth entered Richard's room first to check if there was an assassin in there. All was clear and he called King Richard, to come in. The boy looked utterly exhausted and nervous.

"I'm too nervous to sleep," Richard said.

"Please try," replied Gareth, but he didn't even know if he would be able to sleep himself. He groaned hoping that the King wouldn't have a bad dream again. It was surprising how many times he had bad dreams, Gareth wondered if Richard remembered them. He hoped not. Just about when he was about to leave Richard stopped him in a sturdy voice.

"Sing to me, I've been good and listened to you for two weeks."

"I don't know any songs," he said again for the ten billionth time.

"Make one up then, for me please,"King Richard said. The demand shocked Gareth because it was so out of character, perhaps the lessons actually were working on a real level.

"I'm really nervous about tomorrow," Richard said, " I might lose my kingship. If you sing to me tonight I'll never ask again and I promise I won't wake you."

Gareth thought for awhile. "Fine as a reward I'll sing to you. But-"

Richard cut him off, "Sing from your heart." he said, remembering the conversion from about a week ago.

Gareth sat down on Richard's bed, saying that the song might take awhile. Richard eagerly scooted over to leave space for his guard and the two just sat there for awhile. It wasn't until Richard was getting sleepy that Gareth finally opened his mouth, "Lay by my side and we'll sail away, off to the shores of another day, all set to go once I hear you say, goodnight my friend..."

He continued to sing and soon King Richard was asleep. Gareth got up and walked around the bed to the side that Richard was on and covered him up so he wouldn't get sick for tomorrow, and kissed his forehead before he left the room. He had no idea why he did so. It just felt right.

That night the two boys had the best sleep in years.

The ceremony went well and the next day the two boys both got a ear pierced as a sign of friendship and their new status. Richard didn't even cry. The second part of Gareth's lesson didn't come until years later when Richard set his sights on a faire maiden called Madalena.


End file.
